Relief measures provide timely help to the needy
(China Daily)
Updated: 2006-01-20 06:20

As the biggest holiday among Chinese, the Spring Festival, is coming, governments at all level are stepping up their efforts to aid people in poor and remote areas of the country to ensure everybody will have a happy holiday.

Efforts in coastal regions

The Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and five provinces in southern and eastern parts of China have recently begun offering fuel subsidies to poverty-stricken residents amid price hikes in liquefied natural gas (LNG).

On Monday, Guangzhou, capital city of Guangdong Province, decided to grant 20 yuan (US$2.5) per month as temporary fuel subsidies to low-income families before the Spring Festival, which falls on January 29 this year.

Guangxi, Hainan, Jiangsu, Anhui and Jiangxi previously offered similar subsidies ranging from 10 to 20 yuan (US$1.25-2.5) a month to poor residents.

"The move aims to ease the pressure from continuous price hikes for liquefied natural gas on low-income residents," said Lin Yuanlin, a social security official with the local civil affairs bureau in Nanning, capital city of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Among those to benefit is Wei Rilong, a laid-off worker in Changgangling of Nanning.

In his kitchen are coal briquettes piled up in a small wooden box; beside the box is an empty LNG tank covered with dust.

Wei said: "With the fuel subsidy, we can afford a tank of LNG for the coming week-long holiday.

"At the end of last year when LNG price exceeded 100 yuan (US$12.3) per 15-kilogram tank, I dared not buy gas any longer and so turned to coal."

Since last August, most parts of southern China have experienced a substantial price rise for LNG. The hike was more than 40 per cent in Hainan, Guangxi and Guangdong. And in Hainan's Sanya, LNG cost as high as 120 yuan (US$14.8) per 15-kilogram tank, the highest across the nation.

Currently, China depends on imports to meet more than one-third of the domestic demand for LNG, a by-product of oil refining. "Imported natural gas is priced high and it is difficult for the gas produced in northern China to be transported to southern regions. That's the reason for LNG price hikes," Mo Xiong, general manager of Nanning Sanran Fuel Gas Co Ltd, said.

"LNG imported by Guangdong is now priced at 7,000 yuan (US$863) per ton. It means the wholesale price of LNG per tank has reached 101 yuan (US$12.4)."

The National Development and Reform Commission on Tuesday issued a circular on intensifying management over LNG pricing by local market regulators and petrochemical enterprises.

Professor Qian Zongfan, a social scientist from Guangxi, considered that the fuel subsidy extension signified diversified regulation by government.

PetroChina and Sinopec, China's two leading onshore oil producers, said they will operate their LNG facilities on full power to meet the great demand at home.

Steps in the north

In another development, as of Tuesday, the government of North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has allocated about 180 million yuan (US$23 million) and a huge amount of materials to help people whose lives were affected by natural disasters to manage through the winter.

Inner Mongolia was hit by droughts, hails, floods and severe frosts in 2005, which affected 7.5 million people.

The disasters severely damaged or destroyed 25,900 houses and killed 560,000 livestock in the autonomous region, bringing about a direct economic loss of 7.8 billion yuan (US$975 million).

An official with the regional department of civil affairs said the local government showed great concerns over the welfare of the disaster-affected population and attached great importance to the reconstruction of the damaged areas and relocation of residents.

The official said the region has already spent 184.73 million yuan (US$23 million) in disaster relief and sent 27,161 tons of coal to the relocated population for heating use.

More than 100,000 pieces of clothing and 5 million yuan (US$625,000), donated from various parts of the country, have already been handed out to people in the area.

Assistance from the PLA

Soldiers and armed police are actively joining the campaign of aiding poor people in rural areas, after finishing their duty and drills.

Over the past year, armies helped deprived areas in western parts of the country build nearly 30,000 water-saving projects for agriculture, and 900 roads among villages, according to the General Political Department of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

In Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province, and Lanzhou, capital of Northwest China's Gansu Province, armies funded local educational departments to build 170 primary schools, and 15,000 children, who dropped out of school due to poverty, have returned to their classrooms.

Army-based universities and research institutes in western areas have also helped 200,000 farmers learn latest farming skills.

In the Tibet Autonomous Region, more than 3,000 residents have mastered the skills of planting, breeding and repairing farm machinery, thanks to the help of regional scientific service agencies.

Last year, the General Logistics Department of the People's Liberation Army mobilized 100 army-based hospitals to give medical assistance to 105 hospitals in poverty-stricken counties.

(China Daily 01/20/2006 page5)